Red Threads of Daybreak
by Aria Illusine
Summary: A collection of AkaSaku drabbles, this one's a KisaSaku! Kisame makes a strange suggestion, that leads to a minor epiphany on Sakura's part.
1. Unfounded DeiSaku

Hey! So this is going to eventually be a collection of AkaSaku drabbles, the title itself being based off of the idea of the 'red thread of fate' that is supposed to tie a person to his/her one true love. That and I learned that Akatsuki means 'Daybreak', so... I started this because I was in a super DeiSaku mood today...and was telling XxXdeidara lverXxX how I enjoyed writing Dei-chan as jealous, serious, and slightly insecure...

I don't own any characters from Naruto...but the fic HAS been beta'd now! Thanks Ginkan!

Summary: AU-ish, Deidara eavesdrops on a very earnest Lee talking to his girlfriend and has a short struggle with jealousy...

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**Thread 1: Unfounded DeiSaku**

"So I'll see you tomorrow, Sakura-san?"

Light laughter. "Of course. I thought History of Ancient Suna would be an easy class, but it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected! I really appreciate your help, Lee-san," her cheery voice floated up to him from the street below, grating across his nerves.

"I'd do anything to help you, Sakura-san!"

He could imagine the wild gesticulation Sakura's fellow classmate usually used to emphasize such statements towards the rose-haired girl, and a vein began to throb with irritation at his temple.

"Thanks, Lee-san, see you tomorrow."

The click of the door downstairs worked a fierce grin across his features. _'Finally,'_ he thought, moving away from the window he'd been eavesdropping at. He took a few paces and flung himself onto her couch, snatching up a novel off the coffee table as the front door began to open. He glanced up as she entered, the very picture of nonchalance…and utterly not like someone who had been listening in on her conversation outside with a face like thunder a minute ago.

"Hey, Sakura, how was class, un?" he asked, flashing her a winsome smile and setting the book back down on the coffee table as he sat up.

"Oh hey, Dei-kun," she greeted with an impish grin and a wry raise of an eyebrow. "I don't remember letting you in…"

"Yeah, I know," he replied with a chuckle, "but you've never been good at hiding your spare key, un."

"Idiot," the girl muttered under her breath as she disappeared into her room to drop off her bag. "You're just a creeper, you know that? Always coming after me…"

"Hey! That's what you love about me, un?"

"Un," she agreed, teasingly imitating his speech quirk as she took a seat beside him on the couch.

His arm snaked around her shoulders immediately, pulling her smaller body against his with a low sigh of contentment. It felt good to have her like this again; there was definitely too long of a gap between the times he could see her.

"So what brought this on?" she asked as she relaxed against his comforting warmth. "You don't usually break into my place…at least, you haven't as much since you nearly gave Tenten a heart attack a few months ago."

"Do I need a reason to want to be near you?" he asked plaintively, the words muffled against her strawberry-milk hair as he dropped feather-light kisses onto the crown of her head.

Her cheeks flushed (adorably, in his opinion) as her jade eyes flickered shyly to his and away. "N-no…I guess n-,"

The vibrating of her cell phone made her jump. "Hello? Oh, hi Lee-san…"

A low growl fluttered through his throat, irritation flooding his senses as he shifted to press his forehead to Sakura's shoulder, the thoughts in his mind so filled with expletives that they rivaled his friend, Hidan's, usual speech patterns.

'_If I didn't need you to get my texts to Sakura, I'd be crushing you to bits underfoot right now,'_ he snarled mentally, directing his frustrations at the device pressed against Sakura's ear. _'Tiny, unrecognizable bits.'_

"Y-yes, thanks for letting me know…okay, bye, Lee-san."

He snatched the offending piece of electronics as soon as she was done, ignoring her cry of protest as he chucked it over his shoulder. He had great aim; case in point the annoying thing landed on the cushions lying in a pile in the corner of the room, completely unharmed.

"Sa-ku-ra," he intoned, golden brows drawing together as his bangs fell over blue eyes that smoldered with displeasure. And in an instant she was flat on her back on the couch, his larger frame overshadowing hers as he hovered above her, their fingers entangled as he pressed her hands into the leather on either side of her face.

Glass-green eyes, their gaze as smooth as the surface of an undisturbed lake, focused intently on his face, willfully calm even as her cheeks heated and her body trembled under him.

"Dei-Deidara…what's wrong?"

His forehead pressed to her collarbone as he avoided her gaze, the words he mumbled into the rough cotton of her shirt not even an answer to her question.

"What?" she asked, her voice sharp as she finally translated his strange muttering. She struggled to sit up, still pinned to the couch with her hands immobilized. "Why would you even _ask_ if I love you?" Her voice dwindled to a soft whisper of confession, a confession she'd made many times before. "You know I do."

"Are you…is this about _Lee_??"

He went silent, and that in itself was answer enough.

"Deidara…" She extricated her fingers from his then, and the way he stiffened at the loss with his face buried against her neck made her heart ache. "Deidara," she whispered, drawing out his name lovingly as she shifted to thread her arms around his neck, her fingers tangling into the long blond hair she liked so well. "Lee's just a classmate, a friend from high school. And that will never change, the same way my feelings for you will never change. _You're_ the one I want, _you're_ the one I need."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled against the column of her throat, making her bit her lip against the ticklish sensation. "I know, I'm sorry…I just…you're just the most wonderful part of my life," he told her, drawing a shaking breath, _'and sometimes I just get so _scared_ that one day I'll wake up from this dream and find you gone…'_ He didn't say those words, but he knew she knew because her arms around him tightened just a little, silently urging him to meet her eyes.

"I don't want anyone else to have you; I'm selfish and I want you all to myself and every time I see you with him I can't…I'm sorry…"

"Don't apologize," she whispered as she pulled him forward until their lips were almost brushing, her warm breath feathering like the touch of angels against his until the feeling and her words were the only thing in his mind. "Your possessiveness is one of the things I like about you, un," she teased him gently.

"Un?"

She didn't bother responding to his monosyllabic question with words, instead showing him with her actions just how much she cared by pulling him down into a kiss.

And as her lips parted against his, her sweetness exploding against his tongue as he became breathless under the spell of her touch, he could feel her feelings pouring into him, filling him to the brim. She was showing him just how unfounded his worries were, and he cupped her sweet face in his hands, determined to show her how he reciprocated every bit of love she had for him with that which he had for her.

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So...I have no idea how Sakura refers to Lee. I waffled between Lee-san and Lee-kun when she talks to him...and Lee when she's just referring to him to someone else (namely Deidara in this case...) and I'm STILL not sure what she calls him. I used to know at one point...

Note, I'm not good at writing super emotional romance scenes...so hopefully the one here turned out okay?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this plotless little drabble, and if you did, please leave me a review ^^ thanks!


	2. Swans and Sparrows SasoSaku

This idea hit me while I was watching some old episodes of Naruto Shippuden yesterday, so I went with it ^^ it's unbeta'd and thus not pretty and nice yet, but it DID spark a plot bunny that named itself Carousel and turned out very Cirque du Freak esque...(I was reading the cirque du freak manga last week...)

Nope, still don't own Naruto, though if you'd like to help me start a fun so that I can buy it off of Kishimoto...XD jk jk I'd probably turn it into fangirl heaven and ruin the great storyline he's got going (though it might almost be worth it to bring some characters back to life...)

Summary: When Sakura makes a bet to prove she can be feminine and not just the tomboy vice captain of the school's kenpo club, she turns to the one person she knows will help...

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**Thread 2: Swans and Sparrows SasoSaku**

"You realize, Sasuke-kun, that she's just going to embarrass herself, right?" the crimson-haired girl stated with a thinly veiled sneer. "Haruno has no idea how to dance; she's been doing kenpo all her life and that kind of 'grace' is nothing like the grace needed to do a dance."

"Hn," was the youngest Uchiha's only response as he rested his chin on a hand, the very picture of boredom.

"Poor girl," Karin continued with mock pity, mindless of the fact that the dark-haired boy had already tuned her out. "She really should have just backed out of our little bet and saved face."

A few rows behind them in the darkened auditorium, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten sat nervously exchanging glances.

"Sa-Sakura will be fine…ne?" Hinata spoke up, finally voicing some reassurance to her two classmates. "Sh-she's one of th-the best fighters the kenpo team has…"

"Yeah…Forehead probably has tons of grace, right Tenten?"

Tenten glanced to her friends and sighed. "Dance and martial arts both cultivate your muscles to be always under your control, but dancing is very different from Sakura's usual kenpo…I don't know if she'll have mastered enough to do well…OW!"

Ino shook out her hand gingerly as Tenten massaged the bump on her head. "Oh good going, Tenten," she said irritably, "Hinata's probably started to hyperventilate."

The dark-haired girl did, indeed, have her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

Tenten winced. "Oops…"

"Oops is right," Ino muttered under her breath as lights began to illuminate a small figure on stage, music filling the hall. "Come on, Forehead…you can't fail…"

=*~*~*=

She could hear the music; feel the warmth of the blue-white lights shining down on her from above. Her heartbeat was racing. She wasn't a dancer; far from it. She was the vice captain of Konoha's kenpo team, a tomboy, and more comfortable with her hands clenched in fists as opposed to extended in third position. But she was defending her honor, and no one was going to laugh at her for her strength as a female martial artist after this. She would prove to them all that she could be feminine...

_'I hope. Please let this work…'_

She tilted her head up towards the catwalk above her, viridian eyes gazing upward in a plea, and let go her control. There was only one person who would be able to choose her fate tonight. She was at his mercy, and under his command.

With surprising fluidity, she rose to her feet, the gown she wore fluttering around her like pale mist…and danced.

It was like floating on air. She was lighter than snowflakes blown by the wind, every step landing like a feather's touch on the stage's varnished wood. With her eyes closed, she imagined the faces in the darkened auditorium that she couldn't have seen from her vantage point onstage. Ino, Hinata, and Tenten gasping in surprise and relief, the raised eyebrow of her kenpo coach, Yamato-sensei, and maybe even the sour-lemon look on Karin's face as the crimson-haired girl watched the graceful display.

But more than any victory she got from this dance, she reveled in the beauty of the motions of her body. It was so different from the rapid-fire movements she made in kenpo, each gesture as sharp as a katana's blade. Here, she felt like her namesake on a spring breeze, fluttering with each capricious puff of air that led her on.

And above her, on the catwalk directly overhead, a red-haired male fluttered his fingers in midair like someone playing an invisible piano.

Under his control, the rose-haired girl pirouetted and twirled, with all the grace of a swan gliding across a lake's placid surface. She was the graceful beauty that no one ever saw…because they could only see the rough-and-ready tomboy that she usually was as the kenpo club's vice captain.

And it _hurt_ to have her dance like this. The secret loveliness that he had come to think of as his own would be seen and known by people who hadn't earned it.

She was one of the few people who knew of his strange powers, and the only one who was normal. The others were all members of Akatsuki…a group of strangely gifted individuals. Like having the ability to control the movement of another like a master puppeteer with a marionette.

But when she'd told him about her problem, he couldn't _not_ help her.

The applause was tinted with awe when the music ended and he finally stopped, releasing Sakura from his control as the curtains swung forward to hide her.

Her eyes sparkled with thrilled excitement as he descended the side ladder and met her onstage. "Thanks so much, Sasori! It was…it was _wonderful!_" she gasped, impulsively flinging her arms around him. "I've never had so much fun; I felt…beautiful. But…" a look of worry and concern floated over her features at a thought she hadn't considered, "I suppose we were cheating…I'm not really that graceful in reality…"

"Don't say that," he said fiercely, tightening his hold around her waist. "I was just showing everyone what I could see when I look at you. No matter what you do."

"Sasori…thank you and um…" a light blush skated over her cheeks as she tried to take a step back, out of the circle of his arms.

A small grin ghosted over the redhead's features, and, in a second, he had threads of power holding her in place.

"Wh-what are you doing, Sasori??" Sakura demanded, nervousness sneaking into her voice as her blush darkened.

He leaned forward to whisper, "Something I've wanted to do for a long time," and captured her lips.

The apprehension in him died when he felt her responding, kissing him back, and it was better than he had imagined.

"Sakura! You were aw-oh…um…I'll uh…catch you later…"

Sasori wasn't even certain Sakura had heard her best friend as he released the threads holding her captive, but then she snaked her arms around his neck to pull him closer still, and he decided she probably didn't care…

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I probably really need to polish this up...^^; sparrows weren't actually mentioned here, but it was supposed to be implied that that's what Sakura usually saw herself as. I like to think that Sakura's summons would be sparrows...they're pretty fierce birds (at least, they were where I lived...)


	3. Favorites ItaSaku

I was in a not-so-great mood the other day when something cheered me up, so I wrote about it ^^ the only thing I have in common with this fic is what cheered me up. The rest is pretty much all made up.

Beta'd by Nichibotsu (formerly Ginkan; oh, do tell me if the vindictive sentence makes...y'know...sense now...XD) and still not owning any Naruto-ness here...Aria is sad...

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**Thread 3: Favorites ItaSaku**

It was a bad day.

Actually, it was a day worthy of featuring in Dante's _Inferno,_ and Sakura was far from amused as she scraped the last remnants of Naruto's latest prank from the walls of her bedroom.

She hoped that the blond boy would realize, in retrospect, that green jello and lime schnapps were not a good combination to decorate his best friend's room with at 3 in the morning the night before her MCATs. Perhaps the theft of all his ramen bowls would get the message across. To say she'd been upset would have been an understatement. Sakura did vindictive now, and and did it quite well, and vindictive was exactly how she was feeling.

Honestly, if that had been all, she'd have been fine by the afternoon, but she'd been forced to leave the disgusting gunk on her walls in favor of actually making it to her 8am MCATs, and when it had dried…it was far from easy to get off the walls.

She'd had to miss the floor party that evening because she'd spent the majority of it scraping jello off her walls. And while she hadn't had really been looking forward to said floor party much (she hardly knew half the people…most of whom went to Oto University, as opposed to Konoha like she did) it had been the principle of getting her freedom stolen that had irked her.

"What a day," Sakura groaned, wiping sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. "I just want to go to bed…"

She was collecting up the last of her cleaning supplies when the front door opened. "Hey Ino," she called, not bothering to look up. "I got the last of Naruto's jello prank so we'll still get our deposit back when we move out in a year. How was the floor part-EEEEEK!"

She shot off the floor and onto her bed like a frightened cat, gasping in wordless indignation at the man leaning casually against the doorjamb of her bedroom door. He held the freezing pint of ice cream he had pressed to the back of her neck loosely in one hand.

After several moments of working her mouth soundlessly, she found her voice again. "What. The. _Hell,_ Itachi! What the heck was that for?!"

The ebony-haired male in the doorway let the ghost of a smile pass his lips as he stepped into her room. "You thought I was Ino. I opted for some retaliation."

"Well you could have said it was you," she said, a touch sulkily, as she hopped off her bed. "It's not like I see you very often anyway so how was I supposed to know?"

It was true, he supposed. They were good friends since high school, but hardly got a chance to spend time together because she was always working hard towards med school and the police department took up most of his time. "I suppose I'll make an exception." He changed the hand holding the ice cream, rubbing condensation off on his slacks as he noted her rather interested expression with a hidden grin. "Yes?"

"I-Is that…ice cream…for anyone?" she asked tentatively, tightly coiled longing clear on her face.

"Oh this?" he glanced down at the pint as if _just_ realizing he'd been holding it. "I just picked it up after work…" He grinned. "Catch."

"Hagen Daaz coffee ice cream???"

=*~*~*=

"Itachi…you really know how to turn someone's day around," Sakura sighed happily almost half an hour later as they finished up the last of the ice cream. "I absolutely love this stuff…"

"I know."

She blinked in surprise and flicked viridian eyes in her friend's direction. "How? I thought I was keeping my obsession pretty low key," she commented, licking her spoon. Silence greeted her statement, without even a cursory 'Hn' in response. A tiny frown marring her brow, she half-turned to face the dark-eyed male sitting beside her on the apartment's couch. "Itachi?"

"Because it's you."

Sakura raised an eyebrow, fighting down a blush. It was probably one of those moments where she ought to brush off the comment with a laugh and a witty comment…if only she could ignore the nest of butterflies that had erupted inside her. "So you've finally realized my greatness? Took you long enough," she joked, cursing internally when a tiny quiver worked its way into her words.

She blushed crimson when she turned to him again, only to find that he had somehow invaded her personal space, leaving her trapped between his body and the arm of the couch. "Sakura…you know that's not what I meant," he told her silkily as he gently traced her flushed cheeks with cool fingers…and closed the distance between them.

He tasted like their ice cream, cold but delicious as she gasped at the sudden contact and he deepened the kiss. Her hands fisted into his shirt, her mind spiraling off into oblivious, her last thought one of confusion that the young man labeled by the Konoha U student body as most eligible bachelor of the year would want _her_.

She was breathless when he pulled away.

And then he was looking at her with this strange expression, and she realized it was half fearful, somewhat expectant, and wholly intent upon her. He wanted a response from her that wasn't just actions but words too.

"Itachi…coffee ice cream isn't my only favorite thing," she said shyly, finding her cheeks growing warm as she spoke.

"There's something else?" he asked playfully, the slow smile forming on his lips telling her that he knew he'd won.

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck with an answering smile of her own. "Mmhmm…you," she told him, pulling him in for another kiss.

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Has anyone else noticed how I seem to end my drabbles with kisses? I want to try and break out of that mold...next time. XD Sorry if they're OOC...

The muse accepts cookies but would also love coffee ice cream and...sorry if I'm slow in replying to reviews and whatnot...the site is being very mean to my account lately and it's worrying me...T-T is this happening to anyone else?? Anyway, glad I could post this in spite of not being able to get onto my account half the time...grr...


	4. Convincing ItaSaku

This one's actually 500 words EXACTLY! (minus the title and the author notes etc) and the idea comes from a scene I imagined for a chapter fic I'm thinking of writing entitled Hime-sama (the summary's on my profile XD) where Sakura is betrothed to the Emperor Fugaku's eldest son, Itachi. But in Hime-sama she's a lot more proper than in this fic. Here, she's much more willing to be childish, violent, and in denial XD Hope you enjoy it! Four fics, two days...I'm on a roll! And avoiding finals...

Beta: None! When my beta returns to me, I'll ask her to XD

Disclaimer: Not. Mine.

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**Thread 4: Convincing ItaSaku**

"I hate you."

"Yes, I know," he replied, propped up against several large pillows that were quickly growing sticky with his blood, his face placid in spite of the pain.

"And I'm only doing this because if you died Sasuke would have to take the throne and he doesn't want it…"

"Yes, you've said," he answered calmly, relaxing under the soothing power of her healing chakra as she slowly knit together the gaping wounds that he'd sustained during the latest skirmish.

"And if you died the elders would try to remove ANBU training from nobility curriculum and I think the training's a good thing…

"I believe so too."

"I really do hate you."

"So you've said."

She had, multiple times and with varying degrees of hostility, and he had become accustomed to hearing the epithet on her tongue when he spent extensive lengths of time in his betrothed's presence. And now that he was finding himself by her more and more often, it was strange if he went for more than a few hours without hearing it.

But regardless of how many times she said it, it didn't stop her from being the one to volunteer to heal him of his wounds, ministering to him with all the gentleness she reserved for her weakest patients.

Her words and her actions didn't match up at all; leaving him with a mess of contradictory signals and half-truths that nevertheless amused him to no end.

She was so prickly when they spent any time together, feeling no qualms in bluntly contradicting him, telling him outright that she hated him, and, on one memorable occasion, flying at him with a rather terrifying killing aura, only to change her mind at the last minute and kick him in the shin. And it drew her to him like a moth to a flame (or was it the other way around, with her the moth and him the flame) until he couldn't help but provoke her a little, just to see her scrunch her face into that adorable frown that she assumed was so scary.

And now, with every reiteration of her favorite phrase towards him, he was beginning to think that, just maybe, Sakura was saying it to convince herself of it.

'_I hate you, I hate you, I really do hate you…but love and hate are so similarly passionate, and the line between them is beginning to blur for me…'_

"Sakura," he murmured, his voice low in spite of the fact that he was now completely healed due to her skill.

"Hmm, Itachi?" she replied, leaning closer to hear him with a soft light in her emerald eyes that he wondered if she knew showed.

He moved like lightning, sealing his lips to hers in a quick kiss and then pulling away to let a tiny, genuine smile flutter, unguarded, across his features. "I hate you too."

Her shriek of indignation bounced off the walls, but he was already pulling her down for another kiss.

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XD I really liked this drabble, and since I didn't upload To Myself to this drabble collection...I had to put another ItaSaku up here! Yeah, that's my excuse!

The muse loves reviews and cookies! ^^


	5. Genuine KisaSaku

It's been FOREVER since I updated this drabble series, ne? I was inspired by something my roommate told me a while ago, I'd just never managed to actually write this idea down. I ended up writing it half during my psychology lecture, the other half during my physiology problem session XD. The things Kisame says in this fic are true; try following his advice, I'm sure you'll be surprised ^^ and don't worry, I'm 2/3 of the way through With Practice, hopefully the next chapter will be done by this weekend (more hopefully by sometime late tonight XD).

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters. They belong to Kishimoto.

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**Genuine**

"Bite one."

"Excuse me?" Sakura asked, her head coming up to fix an even, if somewhat disbelieving, viridian gaze on the man so casually invading her lab. "Why would I want to do that?"

He didn't give her an answer, just kept out that blue-grey hand with its offering of perfectly rounded pearls, and finally she caved. Rolling her eyes to let him know how utterly juvenile she found this, she plucked one of the cream-colored things from his palm.

"I still don't know why I'm doing this," she told him, secretly enjoying the flash of annoyance in his eyes when she stopped with the orb almost to her lips. "And I don't think I want to comply until I get an explanation."

"Kami, Pinkie," the Kiri nin mock-grumbled, though his dark eyes flashed with amusement that he couldn't completely hide. "Will you just do it? It's not like I coated them with poison."

Sakura's lips quirked wryly. "Humor me, Kisame-san."

He muttered under his breath, something about how kidnapped medics should know their place and not sass senior members of the Akatsuki, but in the end he sighed and shrugged.

"If you bite pearls and they feel like sand in your mouth, they're real."

Her emerald eyes gleamed with curiosity and interest then, and he allowed himself a toothy grin when she put the pearl to her lips and did as he'd asked.

"Hnn!"

She spat out the pearl, making a face as her nose crinkled at the sensation tingling through her teeth, and glared at him.

After seven months confined to the Akatsuki headquarters, Sakura could wield a glare like a kunai, those diamond-hard green eyes of hers able to give even Itachi a run for his money. Not that she engaged in many staring matches with the Uchiha. A very interesting incident, during which Itachi had gone blind for half an hour and Sakura had to have a lie down for half a day and which they had never spoken of again except in terse tones, had put an end to any thought of that.

"Ugh, that's such a tooth-aching feeling!" Sakura yelped, working her jaw as if doing so would make the strange sensation that tingled her teeth and inner ears go away. Her teeth scraping along the pearl's supposedly smooth surface had made her feel like she'd chosen to bite down on a handful of sand. No matter that Kisame had warned her that's what it would feel like, she had been utterly unprepared for the reality of it.

Kisame's dark chuckles filled the lab, the shinobi utterly unfazed by Sakura's irritated look. Long years as Itachi's partner had made him immune.

But her next question stopped him mid-laugh, causing her to raise an eyebrow in surprise when the man became suddenly much more quiet.

"Why did you bring these here?"

"Zetsu mentioned that you would need them for an antidote component," he said, and his voice was almost sulky, surprising Sakura though she didn't let it show.

"Oh."

It made sense; Kisame could control water, he was practically half shark, and that boundless chakra of his must come in handy for something like this. It still felt weird that he was giving her pearls. It wasn't like she needed them for anything just yet; she hadn't even finished constructing the poison they would counteract.

It almost felt like….oh…ooooh…

A new consideration filled her eyes, and suddenly the whole situation came into sharp focus. Kisame's sudden sulkiness, the unexpected pearls, the reason why he had been visiting her more and more often in the lab of late.

He probably would never tell her. She'd heard him voice his opinion of his own appearance too many times to think that, if he felt anything for her at all beyond a vague sense of camaraderie after the months she had spent at the Akatsuki base, he would say anything of it.

Which was utterly stupid.

Perhaps she'd concentrated on the superficial as a _child_, but she was a full-fledged kunoichi and medic now. What he might have thought of as unappealing to the opposite gender, only made him seem more fascinating to her. But he would probably never think of that. It went to show that, in spite of being a powerhouse of Akatsuki, Kisame was still just a regular male, and had a tendency to be clueless to her emotions.

"Kisame-san," her voice halted him as he made to go, and he turned to face her. A smile curved her lips; and for once it wasn't tainted by sadness or worry or general cares from having been kidnapped by the Akatsuki, colored only by faint amusement. "You need to be more like these pearls," she said with a soft, little chuckle.

"More genuine."

She let him go, knowing that, if (and when) he figured out just what she meant, he'd be back.

END

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Haha hopefully you enjoyed this? If you do bite real pearls, they feel grainy and sandy against your teeth; I've done it on multiple occasions with my string of freshwater pearls because it's amusing to know they're real even if the sensation IS really weird XD. If you ever get pearls, try it! It's quite funny ^^

Please review, the muse always appreciates it when you do!

Aria, out.


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